Tinnitus Seems to Be Somehow Linked to a Crucial Bodily Function, Studies Hint

Tinnitus and sleep have always been closely connected in my case. I do not experience tinnitus while I sleep. Moreover, sleep acts as a sort of switch, turning my head noise on or off for the entire day once I wake up. The following article suggests that researchers are looking into this interesting connection.

Tinnitus Seems to Be Somehow Linked to a Crucial Bodily Function, Studies Hint

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I too do not experience tinnitus when I sleep. But I also don’t experience smells, sounds or consciousness lol.

 

So will this study turn into something (a treatment?) or were they just bored?

 

When I’m “almost awake” I can hear the silence for some seconds, until my body realizes I woke up and the eeeee begins.

 

Same here! And many others here have reported the same. Maybe there's something about it indeed...

 

I had a super hard time getting to sleep before getting tinnitus. Now it's a ritual where I play white noise on my tablet which I sandwich between two pillows, a separate white noise generator elsewhere in the room on my dresser, then playing either downloaded music or NPR classical on my laptop resting beside me. The music is mostly to distract from the white noise while the white noise is to distract from the tinnitus. It's like an arms race.

 

I found this study interesting. I have not been able to sleep through the night since developing tinnitus. I wake up noticeably at least two times every night. No problems falling asleep, with white noise, but cannot stay asleep. I wonder how common that is for group members?

 

My sleep situation is similar. Usually up at least once in the middle of the night, oftentimes twice. My set up essentially drowns my senses in sound. It takes getting used to.

 

I wonder if I'm the only member on here who takes some Ambien to knock myself out and sometimes a 1/2 Valium later.

 

That happens to me after a hot shower.

 

It is very normal for me. I fall asleep and two hours later I jump in the bed with the sound in my head and it takes a bit until I fall asleep again and two hours later the same. Again and again until sunrise

 

To dream. Such freedom. To be myself from "before".

 

One day, it will be so.

 

I laughed out loud at Thomas's sleep process, so thank you for that. Mine is similar - Mozart on my tablet to a bluetooth speaker, fan on, air conditioner (got a window one last year and everyone says they're so loud, but the "wall of sound" it creates works for me), and in really bad times, an ear bud from my phone playing my Hush Tinnitus masker noise. When I wake up during night, as I always do, I play youtube audio talks to help get back to sleep. Needless to say, there's no one else in the room.

 

This is exactly my situation. But worse. I feel sleepy, but each time I feel myself nearly falling asleep, my body "jolts" me awake, as if in unconscious fear of a tinnitus spike.

And sure enough, when I do fall asleep, I do wake up with a massive tinnitus spike.

Last night, that happened after just one hour of sleep; not even two.

Then I couldn't fall asleep again till 4 AM.

The worst part is, my COVID-19 vaccine tinnitus is very reactive, so any sound I use to mask it out also causes it to spike.

But I do need to drown it out, or else it keeps me awake.

At any rate, I think that the study of sleep and its effect on tinnitus is long overdue.

Sleep indisputably affects tinnitus, at times spiking it (sometimes for a little while, sometimes for the rest of the night and then the following day), and sometimes quieting it down.

I would add, if I may, that I think many of us have had this situation (some of us regularly -- indeed almost nightly):

1. One goes to bed with reasonable tinnitus, expecting a decent night's sleep, for a change.
2. BAM. Just an hour or two later (maybe even less), one wakes up with screaming tinnitus.
3. Sometimes this ultra-loud spike tapers off after 10-20 minutes. But sometimes it doesn't, and you're stuck with loudness that persists the next day.

The only thing that changes in the above scenario is falling asleep for that short period of time.

So clearly sleep has a profound effect on tinnitus. (Sleep can also tone down tinnitus. Sleep seems to be a bona fide tinnitus "reset," sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.)

What is the cause of this? Is it somehow tied to adenosine?

I doubt it's melatonin. If it were, then anyone could diminish their tinnitus by taking melatonin supplements.

So... what mechanical/chemical reaction in the head occurs when one falls asleep, which could affect tinnitus so much?

I'd like to hope that this study will find out.

Has any research looked into this question so far? Have there been any findings?

 

That's right. I've also wondered why I can't hear ringing in my ears during sleep.

 

There is certainly something happening with tinnitus and sleep. I don't know if it's sleep itself, or the placement of the head/neck on the bed, or lying down for so many hours. But here's my observations:

Night's sleep for me is sort of like a reset button. I generally have mild (but multitonal) tinnitus, but it has some bad days when it becomes mild to moderate as the hissing/cicadas sound in my left ear expands to the whole head and in noticeable volume/consistency.

So, if it is a bad day, I kinda know that when I wake up the next morning, it will be a good day and things will be nice and quiet. If it is a good day, there's a chance the next morning it may start increasing to the mild to moderate bad day stuff. Thankfully good days are more in comparison.

Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, I get a way more piercing high pitched tone that kinda replaces the others. Still mild, but it's mostly the texture that is piercing. And that is gone when I fall back to sleep and wake up the next morning.

Also, all my tones have a tendency to get a bit worse as the day goes forward until night's sleep which is the reset.

 

Melatonin has proven to lessen tinnitus symptoms significantly in a placebo controlled blinded study.

 

Source?

 

Melatonin: can it stop the ringing?

 

Indeed. I started taking melatonin a few nights ago -- not for tinnitus volume per se, but because my spiked tinnitus had completely destroyed my sleep schedule -- to the point that I was lucky if I could even get three hours of sleep per night.

(I took NeoCitran Night for a few evenings, but its sleep-inducing effects diminished with every day of use, and by the fourth or fifth night, it wasn't doing anything for my any more.)

But the melatonin (5mg, time release) seems to be helping me to get some 5-6 hours of sleep per night. Plus, its sleep-inducing effects don't seem to be diminishing with successive usages.

And so far, as an added bonus, my tinnitus volume does seem to have lowered.

Whether that's due to the melatonin itself or to the increased sleep that the melatonin has generated, I have no idea. But either way, it seems to be helping in a twofold manner.

So far.

 

Same for me, I have a few seconds of silence until system boots up lol.

 

I took Melatonin on day 8 post-onset. My tinnitus started calming down. I thought it was getting better. Weened myself off. Tinnitus got worse and I got stressed so it got worse. I took 10 mg time release Melatonin last night. I had an insane spike during a thunderstorm. I got 7 hours of sleep and dreamt and I’m at a level 1 (possibly lower) right now. Been awake for an hour. Will continue this for a full month and report back

 

Can Melatonin be taken without sleeping being a following activity?

 

Sleep connected with tinnitus? It goes a little deeper than that.

For your perusal:

Lack of sleep in middle age may increase dementia risk

Seems to be also connected with dementia in later life.

 

Zzzzzzzzz.

 

And then many common drugs are "linked" to dementia, specifically drugs containing Diphenhydramine that are used for sleep.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Many people do not realize Diphenhydramine to be a primary ingredient in many sleep aids, allergy meds, anti-nausea meds, etc, and may be taking them together with other common anticholinergic drugs.

Example:

Common anticholinergic drugs like Benadryl linked to increased dementia risk

Anticholinergic Drugs

 

Melatonin is a hormone that your brain produces in response to darkness. It helps with the timing of your circadian rhythms (24-hour internal clock) and with sleep. It can't be a good idea to take it without the intention of sleeping soon after.

 

I experience this exact thing @Golly. It's peculiar. I think it's deep or REM sleep in particular for me. I wanted to tell you about one night in particular. This only happened once, but I woke up in the middle of the night after about 4 hours of sleep and my tinnitus was roaring. I got myself back to sleep and slept for about 2.5 hours more. I woke up to silence.

 

@Joe Cuber, silence? Omg. That's phenomenal. Awesome. I can't figure that out for me. Sometimes it's louder after I fall back asleep. I have silence for 2 seconds when I wake up. Sometimes the tinnitus seems to be all across my head & sometimes only one side.